6 Obstacles to Creative Thinking and How to Overcome TheM

The better you become at finding creative ways to solve the unavoidable problems of daily life and work, the more successful you will be.

Have you ever felt blocked and uncreative or feel like you can’t solve even a simple problem?

You have amazing creative talent and skills, you just have to learn how to unlock your abilities. There are six major obstacles to creative thinking that could be preventing you from learning how to improve your problem solving skills for business success.

If you fail to recognize any of them, they could be holding you back.

1. Lack Of Direction From Yourself or Others

The first obstacle to creative thinking is the lack of clear goals and objectives, written down, accompanied by detailed, written plans of action.

When you become crystal clear about what you want, and how you are going to achieve it, your creative mind springs to life. You immediately begin to sparkle with ideas and insights that help you to move forward and improve your creative skills.

2. Being Afraid of Failure

The second major obstacle to creative thinking is the fear of failure or loss.

It is the fear of being wrong, of making a mistake, or of losing money or time. As it happens, it is not the experience of failure that holds you back. You have failed countless times in life and it hasn’t done you any permanent damage.

It is the possibility of failure, the anticipation of failure that paralyses action and becomes the primary reason for failure and ineffective problem solving.

3. Being Afraid of Rejection

The third major obstacle to creative thinking is the fear of criticism, or the fear of ridicule, scorn or rejection.

It is the fear of sounding dumb or looking foolish. This is triggered by the desire to be liked and approved of by others, even people you don’t know or care about. As a result, you decide that, “If you want to get along, you have to go along.”

It is amazing how many people live lives of underachievement and mediocrity because they are afraid to attempt to sell themselves or their ideas for success.

They are afraid to ask someone to buy or try their product or service. As a result of these fears of rejection and criticism, they play it safe and settle for far less than they are truly capable of earning.

4. Never Changing or Adapting to the Situation

A major obstacle to creative thinking is called “homeostasis.” This is a deep subconscious desire to remain consistent with what you have done or said in the past.

It is the fear of doing or saying something new or different from what you did before. This homeostatic impulse holds people back from becoming all they are capable of becoming and from achieving success.

In homeostasis, there seems to be an irresistible unconscious pressure that brings you back to doing what you have always done.

Unfortunately, this tendency leads you into your own “comfort zone.”  Your comfort zone, over time, becomes a groove, and then a rut.  You become stuck. All progress stops. In no time, you begin to use your marvelous powers of rationalization to justify not changing.

As Jim Rohn says, “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.”

Homeostasis is a major killer of human potential, which will hinder you from achieving success.

5. Not Thinking Proactively

The fifth obstacle to creative thinking for success is passivity. If you do not continually stimulate your mind with new ideas and information, it loses its vitality and energy, very much like a muscle that is not exercised.

Instead of thinking proactively and creatively, your thinking becomes passive and automatic.

A major cause of passive thinking is routine. Most people get up at the same time each morning, follow the same routine at their jobs, socialize with the same people in the evenings, and watch the same television programs.

As a result of not continually challenging their minds, they become dull and complacent. If someone suggests or proposes a new idea or way of doing things, they usually react with negativity and discouragement. They very soon begin to feel threatened by any suggestion of change from the way things have been done in the past.

6. You Rationalize and Never Improve

The sixth obstacle to creative thinking is rationalizing.  We know that human beings are rational creatures, but what does that mean?  

Being rational means that we continually use our minds to explain the world to ourselves, so we can understand it better and feel more secure. In other words, whatever you decide to do, or not do, you very quickly come up with a good reason for your decision.

By constantly rationalizing your decisions, you cannot learn to improve performance.

There are two main reasons why creativity is important in achieving success. First, problem-solving and making decisions are the key functions of the entrepreneur.

As much as 50% to 60% of your time in business and in life is spent solving problems. The better you become at thinking up creative ways to solve the inevitable and unavoidable problems of daily life and work, and making effective decisions, the more successful you will be.

Second, each of us wants to make more money. We all want to be more successful and enjoy greater status, esteem, and recognition. Your problem-solving ability is a key determinant of how much of these you accomplish.

If you’re struggling with how to get your business off the ground and thriving, download my One-Hour Business Plan, an 11-page questionnaire to help determine every element of your business, here.

Written by: Brian Tracy

Credit; Entreprenuer

Steps To Regaining Corporate Reputation

The term “corporate reputation” refers to how an organization is positively or negatively perceived by its key stakeholders. These stakeholders usually include employees, customers, the media, investors, NGOs, suppliers and financial analysts. Their perceptions are built from an organization’s past actions and it’s improvement on keeping promises that give progressive results. Thus, corporate reputation is built over years and can be painstakingly slow.

The relevance of corporate reputation has become evident following series of scandals that have razed multi-million and reputable companies to the ground with very little chance of recovery. Ernst and Young have pointed out that in the investment world for instance, it is believed that 30% to 50% of an organization’s value is intangible; most of this is based on reputation. However, corporate reputation does not only interest the investment world but affects the earning power, growth, profit margins and employability of any organisation. What makes corporate reputation quite remarkable is that as intangible as it is, the tangible actions of an organization is what makes or breaks its reputation.

Corporate reputation is in two part –sympathy (liking and emotional appeal of an organization to the public) and competence (quality of goods and services provided).  Consequently, corporate reputation is built through client experiences, word-of-mouth, the media and consumers. This means corporate reputation takes time to be built; but can be damaged instantly. Internet and media scrutiny allows seamless flow of information that has far reaching consequences but as devastating as it may be, losing face in the corporate world does not mean the end of a business. Gaines-Ross (2008) revealed that recovering corporate reputation is believed to be six times harder than building it. Research has proven that recovery takes an average of three and half years; with it taking 3.2 years in North America, 3.6 years in Europe and 3.5 years in Asia. She has developed a 12-step Reputation Recovery Model which has been grouped under four broad steps:

Stage 1: Rescue

The idea is to take the heat, starting with the leaders of the organization. The organization will have to admit their part in the destroyed reputation without excuses. There should also be continuous honest communication to stakeholders about the state of the business without qualm. Criticism will definitely flood in with unsympathetic reviews from all angles. Though there may  be no preparing for critics, there should be a mental note to never underestimate how much more damage these criticisms can do and how much competitors will take advantage of the downfall.  The final thing will be to re-set the organization’s clock and look back at what triggered the slide downhill.

Stage 2: Rewind

It would be relevant at this point to analyze all the things that went wrong and what had been done right in the past. The right and the wrongs must be torn apart and carefully measured repeatedly till every detail is covered.

Stage 3: Restore

Next, there must be a change in organizational culture. The right culture towards making things work should be adopted without hesitation. The organization will have to take charge and shift their dynamics. The media has to be faced bravely. The point is to let the public understand that you admit something(s) went wrong, but changes have been made to ensure it never happens again. Clear sustainable processes and steps should be communicated in order to regain trust.

Stage 4: Recover  

This step involves building a drumbeat of good news. There should be a gradual, consistent and transparent report of progress. The process is long and slow and so the organization should keep in mind that it would be a marathon and not a sprint. Finally, there should be conscious and deliberate efforts to minimise any form of risk.

The steps are not set in stone. They can be re-adjusted and personalised to suit each business but they have to be followed.

Outsourcing

Despite the success of outsourcing; grounded on good principles and ethics, many organizations haven’t seen the rosy picture yet. Some companies decided to outsource because of fear of being left out but the happier ones are those who properly conceived and followed the right principles and are making big gains.  Today, business success and outsourcing success are inseparable because outsourcing can give you the needed head-start to a great business.

Just outsource so that you can get the needed help.  Outsourcing basically means asking a third-party vendor to work for you on a contractual basis. By outsourcing to a third party, your business can focus on what it does best and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Whether your organization is a large commercial or small business, providing products and services to customers, you can take advantage of this modern business process. Most organizations need to outsource one task or the other.  The goal is not just cost savings but a dynamic and continuous transformation that will keep your company healthy and competitive.  Companies outsource primarily to cut costs. But today, it is not only about cutting cost but also about reaping the benefits of strategic outsourcing such as:

·         Value addition and expansion

·         Access to skilled expertise

·         Staffing flexibility

·         Financial flexibility

·         Market flexibility

·         Focus on core business activities

·         Increased in-house efficiency

·      Better risk management because you share your risk with the outsource provider

·         You can run your business 24/7 when required

·         Reducing turnaround time

·         Improves service delivery and customer satisfaction

·         Gives your business a competitive edge

·         Reduces overheads

·         Increases in business and generating more profit

For example, most companies will only incur cost of certain set-skilled labour when it is necessary to respond to customers’ demand for products/service within a specified period without having to keep such workers on their payroll permanently but can have access to them as and when they need them through an outsource service provider.   If the workers were not outsourced the companies would have to pay wages and bear other related costs whether the employees work or not.  That is what we call flexible staffing in order to reduce costs and maximize returns.  By accessing the providers skilled expertise and taping all of the above benefits the companies add value to their products and services for greater efficiency and expansion.

Big companies like IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Accenture and others lower their costs and boost their profits when they outsourced to India, Indonesia, China, Singapore, Ghana, etc.   Outsourcing abroad helps create jobs and business opportunities in the destination countries but it hurts the workers who lose jobs and those who lose the prospect of jobs in the home countries.   In many cases the American working publics have called on the US government to put measures in place to stop US companies from outsourcing abroad.  However, Samuel Palmisano, the Chief Executive of IBM in the debate room said that “we have no choice; with globalization it’s critical to tap the lower costs and unique skills of labor abroad to remain competitive.”  

What is Ghana doing about outsourcing?

Comments like the one made by Mr. Palmisano above turn to favour outsourcing destination countries.  Ghana is one of the fastest developing nations for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) today and currently ranked 21 in the world and 2^nd in Africa after Egypt on world’s top outsourcing countries.  Ghana also serves as the central leader in the ICT sector of West Africa, but it has to do a lot more for its business process outsourcing like the way Indian (ranked 1^st in the world) has done in order to attract the world’s big companies to outsource to our homeland Ghana and provide jobs for our people.  Many countries will outsource to Ghana because of its stable democratic environment, low-cost labor, a strategic position on the equator sharing the same time zone with the UK, tax exemptions on customs duty for R&D, strong on patents and copyright legislation.  Despite this, Ghana needs to expose itself as a dynamic player in the global sourcing market by creating visibility for its BPO industry and improve infrastructure, increase the number of skilled workers, improve telecommunications, resolve ethnic issues, and improve education in order to boost foreign investments in the country. 

This year the Ghana government through the ministry of communication is now building some IT infrastructure (ICT Parks at the free zone enclave in Tema and Accra funded by the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation) as a way of getting ready to welcome more offshoring from abroad.  As part of this programme the ministry also trained some graduates in business process outsourcing through the Ghana Technology University College this year.  If Ghana is able to market its capability and provide infrastructure for outsourcing to the world and attract at least a quarter of what the world outsources to India it could employ well over 550,000 (¹/₄ X 2,200,000) people thereby raising standards of living of the people in its middle-lower income country status. 

Ghana has gold but benefit very little from gold.   We cannot be sure if our cocoa will ever perform the miracle either, and the least talked about our oil the better.  For all you know business process outsourcing could be the key to unlocking the gate to resource employment and economic prosperity.  Outsourcing has worked for India as it has for Indonesia, Philippines and China, and so it can for Ghana?

The case for indigenous companies

If the world’s big companies are outsourcing to tap lower costs and unique skills of labour from our country to remain competitive, one would expect our indigenous companies in the country to take advantage of these enabling opportunities to lower costs and get flexible staffing and skilled expertise from experienced outsourcing providers like L’AINE to expand and grow their business and be competitive in the market place.  While the multi-nationals like Coca-Cola, Guinness, Barclays, Ghacem, Tullow, and others are seriously building their books and benefiting from outsourcing, majority of our local companies are still sleeping and haven’t yet heard of outsourcing as an opportunity for them to benefit from.   There is nothing to be scared about outsourcing.  You only need to understand what task to outsource, select the right vendor and get the needed help.

How to outsource

It is worth mentioning that the simple statement -“outsourcing saves money” may be fatal and can lure businesses into outsourcing without considering both the faces of the coin. “Outsourcing saves money, but only if you get the deal right.” Like any other business venture proper planning and research is necessary before choosing an outsourcing partner.  The challenge is that any company that takes the strategic decision to make a move to outsource its business units must overcome the burning ethical issues by choosing a right service provider with the required experience.   One of the easiest ways to judge service providers is to look at their track record in providing outsourced services.   If the vendor has good record of meeting clients’ needs and keeping them happy then you should add them to your shortlist.  The provider should have the ability to forge good relationship and work with your business' goals.  

Also look out for outsourcing providers who employ world-class work environs and systematic HR processes because the environment counts a lot.   Solid infrastructure, data security and confidentiality of information on your core competences are some parameters one needs to look at when entering into an outsourcing arrangement.  Above all, do not ignore past customer references as this can give you insight into how risk-proof an outsourcing vendor might be.

Reference

Sourcingline.com, thecountriesOf.com and businessweek.com

By: James Laar

Social Media Takes Center Stage in Recruitment

Social media continues to grow and now has over 1.2 billion users worldwide. While it has become a great tool for companies to connect their brands with consumers, it has also become a valuable tool for recruiters and job seekers. 

Current studies show that social media use for hiring is at an all-time high with 92 percent of companies using platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook for recruitment.

LinkedIn is the top dog for social recruitment. The professional social network was used by 93 percent of companies in 2012, which is up from 78 percent in 2010. Facebook follows close with 66% whilst Twitter has 54% of recruiters using it platform.

Germany has been ranked the most successful country in Europe in terms of a social media based recruitment according to a survey conducted of 1,200 senior executives across Europe, having over 30 per cent of its companies recruiting using online networks.

Companies are now moving away from the traditional advertisement of job vacancies in newspapers and are now taking to social media as their mode of advertising jobs. Aside the advertisement of jobs, recruiters with a click of a mouse can scan through the profile of applicants on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook before inviting them for an interview. 

Job seekers on the other hand have the opportunity to apply for jobs and send their CVs to prospective employers through social media for shortlisting. LinkedIn, as an example, has transformed the way people interact with recruiters. Candidates can now apply for jobs by simply using their LinkedIn URL rather than sending a traditional CV. Equally, candidates are using LinkedIn as their online CV and are investing time in developing online profiles to increase their marketability.

Soon there will be a complete shift from the traditional ways of recruitment towards a more technologically advanced method of recruitment with social media at the center of the process.

By: Sidney Arthur

Focus Media